1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and an information processing method capable of evaluating reliability of acquired information and processing information in accordance with the reliability. The present invention also relates to a person identification apparatus adapted to identify a person using, for example, a face image, and to a method of producing/updating dictionary data in a person identification apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a person identification method according to a related art, feature data of an identification element such as a human face, a voice, a fingerprint, etc. is stored in advance for a plurality of persons to be identified. When feature data of an identification element of a person to be identified is given, the given feature data is compared with the feature data of the identification element stored as the dictionary data of each person thereby identifying whose identification element the given identification element is.
In this person identification method, in a case where a face image is used as the identification element, a feature image of each person to be identifies is acquired, and dictionary data is produced using featured data extracted from the face image. In the production of dictionary data, in general, in order to minimize an effect of a variation of a condition under which the face image used as the identification element is taken or a variation of the orientation of a face, a plurality of face images of each person are acquired and the average feature data of the face images is stored as the dictionary data of each person (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-271958).
In general, each time a face image of a person is identified, the dictionary data of the face image of the person is updated using feature data of the identified face image of the person.
In general, in the production/update of the dictionary data, a plurality of face images are treated equally without being weighted.